


Dream Of The Doctor

by orphan_account



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Doctor Who AU, M/M, Oneshot, dream - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 02:29:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14439543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Simon falls asleep watching Doctor Who, but he doesn't dream about any Doctor from the show. No, for some reason, the Doctor in his dream looks exactly like Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch





	Dream Of The Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> It's been ages since I've had the courage to post any of my writing, so I thought I'd start with a quick one-shot. You don't really need to know anything about Doctor Who to enjoy this, although it may help.

**SIMON**

               The sand beneath my feet is hot, and it’s gritty where it rubs between the soft leather of my sandals. The roar of the crowd is so deafening, I can barely hear the growls of the lion in front of me. It’s the first time I’ve been expected to fight something other than a human, and I’m not sure if I can do it. The lion is clearly scared, and it growls and swipes and snaps at me, but it doesn’t actually attack me.

               The crowd is relentless. They’re screaming at me to make the kill. I look up at the eyes of the Emperor. They’re blue, like mine, but so cold. He holds out his hand, and slowly turns his fist downwards. I know what it means. Either I kill the lion, or I’ll be killed. I raise my sword. And then I see him.

               He doesn’t stand out at first, with his dark olive skin and black hair. But his clothes are like nothing I’ve ever seen. Instead of a white draped toga, he’s wearing a long black coat. He beckons to me, and his mouth is moving. I can’t hear him, but for some reason I know what he’s saying.

               “Run,” his lips say. I run. My feet scrabble in the sand and I can’t look back to see if the lion is chasing. I throw my sword behind me, and I pump my legs and arms, and when I reach the wall, I jump. He leans down over the wall, and my hand clasps his, and he pulls me up as if I weigh nothing. And then we run. There’s a girl there, too, with bushy black hair and dark brown skin. She takes my hand and we sprint through the streets of Rome. When we finally stop, I can’t understand what the destination was. We’re in a dark alley - a dead end.

               “We must keep running. They won’t stop until they’ve killed me,” I say, my chest heaving with the effort of the long sprint. I had already been exhausted from the ring. The girl is also breathing too heavily to speak, but the man seems unaffected.

               “Oh, my dear boy, we’re always running,” he says, and he turns and strides down the alley. The girl takes my hand, and leads me after him. He pushes aside a tattered piece of cloth, and underneath is a brilliantly blue box.

               “Wh-what is this?” The box is both strange and familiar. Haven’t I seen it before?

               “You’ll see,” the girl says, grinning like she has a secret. I do see, when the man opens the door of the strange box, and strides inside like it’s not only a few feet deep. The girl follows. I peek around the edge after them and I can’t believe what I’m seeing. The inside of it is shining, With columns of metal instead of stone, and other strangeness that I can’t even describe.

               “I-it’s,” I stutter.

               “Bigger on the inside?” The girl asks, grinning, and I nod, unable to speak. “I’m Penny,” she says, holding out her hand. I clasp my hand around her forearm, and she looks down at it in surprise. “Okay, I guess we can do that,” she mutters, pulling her arm away.

               “I don’t have a name. I’m just a slave,” I say, and her face falls. The man is silent. “Why-why am I here?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer me. He’s looking at the metal manacles on my wrist, a constant reminder of my servitude. Wordlessly, he takes a small object out of his pocket, walks over to me, and gently lifts up one of my arms. He holds it against the manacle, and it makes a strange sound, and the manacle falls off. He repeats it with the other one.

               “You’re no longer a slave,” he says, and his eyes meet my own. They’re gray. I’ve never seen gray eyes before.

               “Why?” I ask again, and Penny places a hand on my arm.

               “It was my idea,” she says, her eyes shifting down to her feet. “You look like my best friend, Simon. He died a few years ago. When I saw you, I thought you must be a ghost, but that would be impossible, since Simon won’t be born for hundreds of years,” she says, and I become more alarmed with each word.

               “How can you know someone who isn’t born yet?” I ask. Penny smiles, and looks at the man.

               “I think it would be easier to show him,” she grins. The man strides around the strange circular dais, flipping levers and slamming his hands down on raised panels, his coat flares as he moves, and I think it’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

               “Hold on tight,” Penny says. I’ve faced down men of every shape and size, all of them wanting my blood. Now I can even say I stared a lion in the face and knew it would likely mean my death, and yet, I didn’t know fear until that moment. The sounds are alien, horrible, and the movement unnatural. I almost lose my footing, but Penny has a hard grip on my arm, her other hand gripping a solid railing. I close my eyes and prepare for death, sure now that this must be some kind of hallucination given to me by the Gods to ease my passing. Any moment I’ll surely wake to see the jaws of the lion closing over my throat.

               “We’ve arrived,” the man says, and Penny lets go of my arm. I open my eyes, and I’m still inside the strange room.

               “We’re in the same place,” I say, looking desperately between Penny and the man for an explanation. I still don’t know his name.

               “No,” Penny grins, “we’re not.”

               “Who are you?” I ask the man.

               “He’s the Doctor,” Penny answers.

               “Doctor who?”

               “Doctor is sufficient,” he says, before turning and striding away. I look at Penny, but she just smiles at me again, before following him. My knees feel like rubber. I sink down onto the floor. The plain white loincloth I had on is filthy. I’m covered with sand and dirt, and my feet are rubbed raw from where my sandals meet the skin of my ankles.

               The Doctor and Penny return, and Penny drops something unbelievably warm and soft over me. I’ve never felt the like of the fabric before, it feels almost like fur, but it’s bright blue.

               “What’s going on? Where are we? Please, if you’re going to kill me, just do it,” I beg, and Penny frowns at me.

               “No one’s killing anyone. You need a bath,” she says, and the Doctor nods. A bit of his hair falls into his face.

               “We can explain after you’re clean,” Penny says firmly, and she kneels down, pulling the strange cloth over me, belting it at the waist. It falls down nearly to my ankles. Penny and the Doctor are also both wearing them. The Doctor’s is black, and Penny’s is purple. I want to warn her that it is treasonous to wear purple, that she could be killed for impersonating royalty - and then she opens the door.

               The lush green forest outside the door is nothing like the dry, sandy streets that were outside that door only moments ago. I run through it, and my feet sink into the thick grass. The wet, damp scent of the woods surrounds me, as well as another scent I can’t quite place.

               “The floating pools of Elainora,” the Doctor says, “it’s only the finest bath available in any time, or any place, and you can take my word on that,” he says, walking past me as if I’m not about to have a meltdown.

               “Come on, er,” Penny says, and then pauses, “what should I call you?” She asks, and I shrug.

               “I’ve never had a name,” I say, “at least not one that I want anyone to call me.” She’s looking at me sadly, and even though I just met her, I hate the thought of her being sad. “Didn’t you say I looked like your friend, Simon?” She nods. “You can call me that, if you want.” Penny grins and throws her arms around my neck, pulling me into a tight hug. When she pulls away, she grabs my hand.

               “Come on, Simon!” She cries, and I follow her and the Doctor. The bath was truly amazing. The pools floated on clouds drifting lazily above the lush green forest, which was filled with the most beautiful birds I’ve ever seen. I had never been so clean in my entire life. They explained to me, with some difficulty, that they were time travelers, that the Doctor wasn’t human, that Penny was, but from a different time than me. They asked me if I wanted to come with them, and all I could say was ‘yes’, because I never wanted to go back to where they found me.

 

***

 

               The Cybermen have found us, and it seems impossible that they could have discovered us in the labyrinth of this museum. We’re running from them, just me and the Doctor. Penny wouldn’t follow us, saying she could hack into the system, that she could disable them. We pound down the hallways, the soft rubber of the trainers I wear now still feel odd against my feet. The Doctor wraps an arm around my waist and drags me off to the side, and we fall into an open crate. He presses down on top of me, his hips between my legs and his elbows on either side of my head, and I can feel his hearts beating against my own chest. The Cybermen pass by, but we stay there for just a moment longer.

***

               The war on planet Daibazal is brutal. The war machines they create surpass imagination, and not in a good way.

               “All of this creativity, all of this brilliance, and you waste it on these killing machines?” The Doctor stands in front of the General’s desk, looking down at him with such coldness that the General shrivels a bit under his glare. “You could use these resources to solve every petty problem that causes you to go to war, and instead, you decide to use them to murder each other. Pathetic!” He spits and the General flinches.

               “You’re going to have to find some other way to solve your problems now,” Penny says, and looks at me. “Simon, do it!” I slam my hand down on the button. I don’t know exactly what it does, but Penny rigged it up while the Doctor was buying us time. A shock-wave rocks the entire room, and the ever-present rumble of the reactors lessens and lessens, until it dies completely. It’s quiet now, and the Doctor smiles at me.

***

               It was supposed to be a moment of reprieve for us, although I’m beginning to wonder if that’s even possible when you travel with the Doctor. I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the political intrigue that we end up in the middle of, so I do the only thing I’m good at - I follow the Doctor and get ready to protect him if I can. Except the barbs that he would suffer here aren’t physical. They come from smooth politicians and haughty royals. I bristle and growl when I think someone is insulting the Doctor, but he simply smiles and destroys them with words more thoroughly than I ever could with my blade.

               When the Doctor says he has to attend the new Queen’s coronation party, Penny wrinkles her nose and says “No, thank you”, and then the Doctor and I are whirling together on the dance floor. I don’t know how to dance, but the Doctor’s arm is steady around my waist, his hand leading my own as we cut a path through the crush of people. The strange wine they serve makes my head feel strange, and I rest it against the Doctor’s shoulder. As daft as it sounds, I don’t remember how we fixed things, I only remember my cheek pressing against the black velvet lapel of his suit.

***

               Penny left us after a year. “I have to go back,” she says. I beg her to stay. She gave me my name, maybe I wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t looked like her friend Simon. She just smiles and says, “It’s been great, but I don’t really want to go back to my own time only to realize I’ve aged 50 years and everyone else has stayed the same.” She says that she’s in love, that she wants to be with Micah all the time.

               When she leaves for the last time, I cry. The Doctor puts his arms around me, and pulls me into an embrace, his hand gently running down my back. He’s being unusually kind. In many ways, he’s always kind, but also somehow reserved. He doesn’t seem to be too sad to see Penny go, and I wonder how many he’s had at his side and how many he’s seen leave him.

               “I never want to leave your side,” I say. His face is unreadable but his eyes are filled with something, the same something I feel filling up my chest.

               “Simon, where do you want to go?” he asks me. “Any place, any time.” For a devastating moment, I turn to ask Penny. She was the one who usually decided.

               “I don’t mind. I’ll go anywhere with you,” I tell him. It’s true, I would.

               “Isn’t there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?”

               “I’ve always wanted to visit the sea.” My cheeks are hot. It probably sounds so mundane and silly to someone like him. He smiles, and whirls away, slamming buttons, pulling levers, and I miss his arms around my shoulders. The now familiar noise of the TARDIS starts up again, and I remember how scared I was of it the first time I heard it. I’m not scared of it anymore.

               He takes my hand, and pushes open the door, and the sea is glittering in front of me like a fine piece of silk. There’s not a single footprint in the sand, and the air is warm. I kick off my trainers, and run out into the sand. It’s not the hot sand of the arena where I spent my early life. It’s cool between my toes, and so fine it feels smooth against my feet.

               The Doctor follows, and we stand with our feet in the water, holding hands and looking at the setting sun. I turn to him, and I want to say something, but I can’t grasp the words.

               “Snow,” he says, and I don’t understand at first. He holds up his hand, and I see all around us the fat flakes that are starting to fall.

               “I’ve never seen the snow,” I say, but that isn’t right, is it?

               “Snow,” The Doctor says again, and his voice sounds wrong. The tenderness is gone, it’s all hard edges and contempt. “Snow!” He yells, and he’s holding me by the shoulders. The snow is coming down harder now, and I can’t see the beach anymore. The last thing I see is the Doctor’s face before it’s swallowed up by the blizzard.

               “Snow!”

***

               I jolt awake, looking up to see Baz’s irritated face above me. For a moment, my dream is so present in my mind that I think it’s the Doctor.

               “Doctor...?” I ask, before shaking my head and sitting up. The laptop falls off my chest. I must have fallen asleep watching Doctor Who again.

               “Doctor?” Baz’s face twists into a gleeful smile. “Were you actually dreaming about that daft show?” He laughs, and my cheeks burn.

               “No!” I lie. Baz just laughs again, shaking his head. I rub the sleep out of my eyes, desperately trying to remember the dream. The feel of it is twisted by seeing the man that I had just dreamed as the Doctor in front of me, mocking me so mercilessly.

               “You were snoring like a chainsaw,” Baz glares at me, “and if you don’t get up now, you’re going to miss breakfast, and I can’t stand the idea of listening to your stomach growl for the rest of the day.” Baz sneers at me before stalking out of the room. I get out of bed, throwing on my uniform to try and make it down before the end of breakfast. As I pull on my jumper, I wonder why my brain decided to make the Doctor look like Baz? (Probably because he’s the closest thing to an alien I know).

               I stomp down to breakfast and tell Penny about my dream (at least as much as I can remember), and she laughs at the idea of Baz being the Doctor.

               “I suppose he’s the closest thing to an alien you could think of,” she says thoughtfully, and I nod in agreement, stuffing another scone into my mouth. I look up and catch Baz’s eyes flicking away from me just as my eyes land on him, and for a strange moment I have the urge to walk over and press my face against his chest, to see if it feels the same as it did in my dream. I shake my head, and add that to my list of things not to think about (at least not while I’m awake).


End file.
